By the North Sea
by Petronia
Summary: Inconclusive encounters on the night before a mission, in a vaguely Wuthering-Heights-esque landscape. Trowa-centric.


**By The North Sea**

There was a place like this in my childhood.

It is unlikely that I should have stood here once, in the no-man's land between grass and sea – but I recognize the landscape still. Certain aspects only, of course. It must have been early on, since the memories are unclear enough to blur into instinct. The Northern aloofness of the castle conjures no images; the rolling downs only ghostly sensations of scent and texture, _yielding soil warm to the touch and crumbling like crushed chalk between the fingers, heather in flower a veil of honey-sweetness between one and the sky._ Nothing as logical as sight or even sound, nothing I might pin down to a time and a place, only the sense of familiarity I must trust by the simple nonsense of its presence.

The sea speaks to me most of all here, which is strangest. Children of the colonies, uprooted, we accommodate ourselves easily to the oceanic expanse of space, but space possesses nothing of the sea's animality — nor at heart its emptiness. Space still enfolds some measure of human aspiration. The finitude of the sea makes it a prison for such as us; I have no wish to make its acquaintance, but already ours has been renewed. I wonder if this was home, or at least a home.

The sensation is not to be confused with pain. _That_ comes and goes.

* * *

"...So it would be more efficient to take out the comm platform first, all things considered." Fingers moving over the aerial map, tracing, fingernails neatly trimmed. Glance up. "Ne, Trowa?"

I nod. Quatre returns his attention to the maps and diagrams spread two deep on the dining table, murmuring to himself. The others are scattered about the spacious room: Wufei in an armchair by the disused fireplace, Yuy intent over his laptop at the other end of the table. Maxwell sprawls across from Quatre, all elbows and indolence, twisting the end of his braid between two fingers.

"South from Finnodt as soon as we've disrupted communications, in order to intercept any OZ forces arriving from the base. Leaving... leaving Trowa and Wufei to destroy the power plant. We'll be split up for a while," Quatre says softly, his eyes on the map. Maxwell makes a sound of disgust.

"What the hell," he says. "We've already pared down the risk factor as far as we could. Wu to your right probably wouldn't even have made the house party if they weren't so freakin' obvious about not green-lighting for less than the full complement. This is OZ territory." Wufei doesn't bother to comment, and for a minute the only sound is the muted clatter of Yuy's typing.

Maxwell sighs then, glancing at the other's oblivious profile. "Yo, Heero. _Heero._ How about callin' it a day?"

No answer.

"Ch'. Dude, you are so uptight, d'you know that?"

Another pause. Yuy types away unfazed, and I find myself counting despite my best intentions: _two, one —_

"Nothing's broke, you don't have to fix it. Tomorrow's a brand-new day. Guys, I vote if we're not gonna turn in, at least let's grab ourselves a drink. _Heero._ Mr. Normal with the gun down his shorts. Turn the bloody machine off and make like society for once. Nothing's gonna change at this —"

Maxwell kicks into full soliloquy mode and I tune him out, knowing the tirade's not meant for me. Likely the mission weighs on him no matter what he says. Yuy hasn't spoken since we briefed the Maganac fighters with the agreed-upon version of our plan; presumably he is studying the details of tomorrow's strike, spreading them out at his fingertips in permutations only a perfect soldier could perceive. Regardless, the plan is well-laid, and thrice-laid. The rest of us remain in our seats through inertia, the summer night's pleasant lull invading the room from the open window behind me.

We're not as wary of such moments here, ensconced in Quatre's spacious Herjoren Castle apartments. The entire fief is seven times removed from its Winner family holding company through a planetary tangle of financial institutions. Traceable — but even OZ would need time, more than we've given ourselves. Yuy's not relaxed for all of that, of course. Relaxation for him is probably as counterintuitive as death. I can understand easily.

Tomorrow Maxwell will head south from Finnodt with Quatre and the Maganac, and Yuy will move into Eastern Europe. When our next meeting chances they will be together — or apart. That's their concern.

I'll head to a third designated base with Wufei, continuing together from there or splitting up, depending on the pursuit. That's my concern — or rather, it is my choice. The one who precipitated the decision sits now at the table, his hands clasped and still in his lap. His heart is heavy despite Maxwell's chatter; I sense this and the tenderness his transparency calls forth frightens me, like free-fall when it confuses itself with flight.

Light from the lamp beside him warms his skin.

"...short of ol'Zechs parachutin' into the courtyard with fifty Aries at his back, but I figure you've got Plan, like, Seventy-B to cover that. 'Sides which, I'd like to see you try piloting with carpal tunnel. What d'you say? Place the size of a space station has gotta have a liquor cabinet somewhere. He-e-_ro?_"

Still no answer. Maxwell favors the rest of us with a rueful grin, but some brief flicker in his eyes ages him. "Cripes almighty. I'm going for a walk. No offense or anything, Quatre" — his chair scrapes loudly as he rises — "but it gets stuffy in here."

A moment later the door swings closed behind him.

It is as if a spell of contentment is broken. Quatre raises his head when the sound reaches him, and blinks. "I should go see about the rooms," he says finally. His gaze slides around the room in silence, meets mine with the inevitability of gravitational pull. "We have to make an early start tomorrow..."

His words trail off and he smiles at me, a little confused, a little apologetic. It's his way, random warmth that almost makes me smile back — only that's no longer a part of me, even were I to wish it. Kindness is a sin sometimes. Then he looks away, and I feel suddenly misplaced.

"Good night," he says softly.

Social amenities I can still manage. "Good night... Quatre." I turn my gaze to the window, the broken clouds streaming across the moon, so he will not catch me watching him leave.

He doesn't need that.

Five minutes later Yuy closes his laptop decisively and heads for the door, not a word offered in politeness. At the abortive click of the catch not quite falling into place an irrational impatience wells up in me, and I rise from the window ledge.

"Where are you going?"

Wufei.

He didn't move from his armchair, or even speak when the others left. I pause at the half-ajar door.

"For a walk," I say meaninglessly, following Maxwell's cue. A radio plays somewhere else in the castle, probably the housekeeper's; the bluesy French music drifts through the window, vocals blurred from distance. A love song, no doubt. Such music usually is.

I need some time to myself.

"Regarding Quatre." It sounds like an assessment. "There's no real need for you to merge your line of attack with mine, especially if you're coming from the east anyway. The turbines are controlled remotely, so they'll be sparsely manned. Given our intelligence of the facilities, it would change very little if you rendezvoused with the Maganac at Finnodt instead."

"You should have mentioned it when we were briefing the others, if you found the strategy inappropriate."

"The change is not significant enough to be inappropriate. It is your motives which I question."

"My..." Out of habit, I keep my hand from tightening on the door-frame. "Sou."

Silence in the room, except for the radio which has gone to advertisement. When I realize he is giving me time to answer, I say, "I feel that this is the simplest solution. For both of us."

"What does he think?"

This time I do turn. From where I am only Wufei's profile is visible; as far as I can tell, he's gazing thoughtfully at a reproduction of the _Venus d'Urbino_ which hangs over the fireplace. I don't expect him to be smiling, and he's not.

"You must think I'm arrogant," I say, "or a coward. Since you're asking."

"No. You... are pragmatic, which is somewhat different. Also I don't judge such situations." Pause. "Yuy barely recognizes his needs, but he takes what he wants. You are skillful enough that either your caring or your indifference might be a facade — as the case may be — and the end result would be the same. As I say, I question your motives."

"Yuy understands need, but not mercy. I find that I inflict enough pain in this world without having to go out of my way."

"Mercy, then. But not for yourself."

"Speaking in general terms, we all of us fight to protect others." I turn once again to leave.

"Have you ever thought about what it would be like if he were to be taken first? As it is, not even memory would remain to you." The tone halts me as much as the words: a different note from those I am accustomed to in Wufei's voice, cool pride or whiplash contempt or even the meditativeness I have encountered before this evening. He is watching me now, but I detect no such tension in his face or figure.

"That would certainly be... cleaner."

"Remember what the saddest words of all are, Trowa Barton."

His gaze is even. Perhaps there is a story behind this but it's not my place to ferret it out. The two of us have come this far based on a certain respect.

"Sumanai," I say without acknowledgment. "I was never much of a scholar."

"Arbitrary weakness of heart in lieu of justice. You really are a man of little honour."

Humour is not an integral part of Wufei's make-up. I choose not to respond.

* * *

If it were only that simple.

Set aside for a moment the old arguments regarding our duty, which in any case we find difficult to forget. What should I call then this path I walk, knowing as I do the ring of his voice, the warmth of his hand and every foolish thought that ever chased itself across his eyes when they met mine? Foresight? Denial? Self-sacrifice, perhaps, if one is searching for a more romantic term. And yet all these words are empty. I learnt to put away such things long ago, to wait out the pain, which has never yet refused to leave me. Humans are not built to sustain love or mad despair; the soul accommodates, far more than the flesh to physical blows. Knowing this, and free of pain, how am I deserving?

And yet —

Yet —

— I watch him.

I watch him. Perhaps he watches me. It would have been easy to adjust my solitude otherwise, to him and to the others — they have their own strengths that brought them to this moment, and spaces of retreat behind their eyes. Apart from that, we have one mission. It's not a question of trust, only of knowledge: awareness that the pieces and the players move thusly. My mission.

That fact is unmoving. Call it my karma, if you will.

Even thus I feel as if I command some part of him; as if he is what he is by virtue of my existence, here, beside him. Perhaps the others feel the same, to a certain extent. This blind reliance is his gift. Rather, he has made things simple for himself, and his simplicity is a balm to us. Whether it is his true self or not should matter — perhaps — and I am ashamed to know that it does not.

But I watch him. I find it difficult to stop myself; he places me at peace, an alien peace which my discipline does not understand.

And so I must choose.

* * *

I found the ruins myself.

When I asked Quatre the day before, he looked surprised and stammered something about an eccentric ancestor on the distaff side, whose taste in architecture ran to the unsturdy and the rococo. The old nobleman's follies have apparently fallen into disrepair centuries ago, to be demolished one by one as time passed: remains only a section of what must have been the garden wall, crumbling marble carved with colonnades, set with statuary of saints and overgrown with rambling plants. Its impractical grace touches me; I follow it now as a marker, on my way to the sea.

I will not reach the beach by this path, I know — the ground is climbing. Yet I have some faith. The sea calls to me tonight, the sound of the night-tide drawing me on, promises seductive to my restlessness. All I need is to see, and for that a hilltop lookout would do just as well.

It is the white I notice first. Paleness disembodied like flame in the dark of the ruins, perspective impossible in the moonlight. It is only when I approach enough to catch the scent that I understand what I see. The trees are staples of Northern arboretums for their blossom, but persistent sea-wind dwarfed them to bushes here, overshadowed by the ancient, broken stones. Like children or very old men they stand, bowed below their pale burden. I do not know their name, but one comes to me from long ago and far away: _the wedding tree._

The roar of the tide closer now, filling the air. I kneel, somehow needing the cool of grass beneath my hands to steady me, and crawl the last few meters to the edge of the cliff. Branches catch at my clothing, my face, laden with flower. I am damp with dew by the time the ground gives out before my groping fingers.

The sea.

It stretches before me, immense and breathing in the darkness, indifferent as an animal. The sky is clouded over, and I make out only with difficulty the line of rocks against which the tide breaks, immobility against the rushing water and swirling foam. Perpetual motion beyond logic or entropy. There is nothing human here: it soothes me as a veiled mirror may.

The moon re-emerges then, and the entire landscape changes. The waves come alive in gleaming, rippling shards; the wet rocks cast shadows on the smooth sand. And by the fey light I see for the first time the dark silhouette in the water, standing in the path of molten silver the moon casts upon the sea in guise of reflection. A stone or broken saint tumbled from the ruins — until he moves.

Duo Maxwell.

* * *

He stands, not too far into the water, his back to me. He is very still; sometimes he shifts his weight against the pull of the tide, that is all. Too still, for Maxwell. If he is talking to himself, the sound is drowned by the roar of the breakers. He has rolled his usual dark pants up to his knees to keep them from the salt water. I find myself suddenly comforted by that small mark of foresight, as if it were the only proof that he is not going to walk into the sea to disappear forever. But he does not move, and so I simply lie with my cheek against the grass, watching him watch the sea. The perfume of the trees dulls my senses gradually until I no longer detect it, only the scent of the soil and the sharper one of green growth.

I don't know how long it lasts. Hours, perhaps.

Eventually a movement by one of the rocks catches my attention, and Yuy emerges from the shadows. He is carrying his shoes in one hand, I note, vaguely surprised; his feet are bare, coated with wet sand. He has obviously been wandering on the beach for some time, maybe for as long as I have been on the downs. I know the exact moment when he catches sight of Maxwell, for he stops abruptly in his tracks, then starts forward a few feet more before halting again with his back to me, as if hesitant to enter the water. The last fringe of a wave breaks against his feet, and another. So.

Then Maxwell turns, his gaze returning from a great depth.

For a long moment, they simply watch each other across the water. The look on Maxwell's face is strange: naked almost, like someone who forgets to smile in the same way as he forgets his house keys — or someone who's been caught so utterly off guard that he no longer remembers what he is defending against. Yuy must say something then, for Maxwell turns his head away sharply. His lips move, but I can no longer make out his expression. Negation, perhaps, or fatigue: the hour is late.

I feel it when his eyes close. the air changes, and the sea itself.

Yuy feels it. He tosses his shoes to one side carelessly. The tide licks at his feet in a whisper of foam, and recedes. Yuy follows as if drawn in by the same inexorable force, taking a step into the water. Then another. Maxwell doesn't move exactly, not even to watch him, but he seems to shrink into himself, his face pale in the moonlight and suddenly strained. But Yuy's advance is deliberate. This I have seen in battle when he senses weakness, an invasion of Maxwell's space merciless as if a gun is well and truly pointed. By the time he takes hold of the other boy's shoulders, the shock of physical violation is over.

Maxwell tenses at the touch, his head falling back, but doesn't open his eyes. It is at that moment that I realize I cannot move, lying on the ground amidst the crushed petals and wet grass as if they could offer me sanctuary. I would help him if I were able. Then Yuy pulls him close, and his mouth closes over Maxwell's.

Watching it's as if all my life takes wing through that infinite second. I feel it in me, against me when Maxwell yields, his hand moving up Yuy's back caressingly, the sudden convulsive clench of his fingers — the water swirling about their ankles — the heat of them, the taste of their lips redoubled. Not a gentle kiss. With Maxwell still pliant against him, Yuy's hands slide downward, unravels in passing the braid that lies heavy against Maxwell's back, breaking the band most likely — combing the glossy strands through his fingers in a gesture I would not have expected. As if he, the one bred from childhood for the most utilitarian purpose of destruction, could be touched by beauty. It is not impossible; it would only mean that I have lacked in understanding.

When he is done Maxwell's hair flows loose about the two of them, trailing in the water. The tide plays with it like a merchild with festoons of Sargasso grass, setting the sea-logged strands drifting away, drifting back. Yuy takes his mouth again for a long time, then bends to pick him up with no apparent effort and carry him to the beach.

And once there, gently, gently, he undresses him.

My breath is quick, hitching in my lungs as if every intake of air were the first — or last. It seems alien to me, this breath; it is the only clue I have of what is happening to me, so far am I past understanding. They are beyond me now, beyond my names for them, slipping into their ageless complicity. Yet I feel it still, _hands on me not mine lips yes take me in those caresses I copy against my skin and seal with an imagined kiss the fragile skin in the hollow of his throat, my lips parted, take me now, take me._ The world is warm, the sea pulsing in counterpart to the white figures in their sighing dance — there — and in the dark when I close my eyes, spent. Though it was another shadow which insinuated itself beneath my quivering fingers. It always is.

And yet I have vowed that I will not use him thus. And yet —

The pain hits me then, and I struggle to my feet, stumbling away — running — not caring if I am seen. Toward the castle. I would run into the sea if I dare, run until there is no more breath or thought or desire, only the dark water and stillness. But I am a coward before the pain: I cannot release it though my eyes burn, aching for tears that would not come, though it is the only thing that holds me to life. All I can do is wait for it to burn down, passing from me like dead ashes on the wind.

As it always does.

* * *

It is much later before I make my way into the castle. As I climb wearily to our upstairs apartments I hear the click of a switch, and the stairwell floods with light. I look up.

"Trowa...?" He stands on the top of the stairs, ruffled with sleep, his hair haloed golden by the ceiling lamp. "Where have —" I see his expression change and force myself to keep moving as he tears down the steps. "You're all wet! Did it rain?"

"Daijoubu," I murmur. "I just need to change..."

"But —" He reaches out, his eyes anxious, his hands —

_No!_

I cannot have him touch me. Not now —

I register his absolute stillness before I realize that I've taken his hands roughly, holding them away from me.

He stares at me, wide-eyed; it seems he hardly breathes. I want to weep and cry out for that — that I could snare him thus, being what I am — but I have lost my way to that place where tears reside, and cannot find my way back. Even the pain has gone, receding into the hard purity of myth for all as if it had meaning.

Sin and atonement. I drop his hands. "Go to bed," I say softly. He makes no movement when I pass him. I leave the light for him to make his way by.

* * *

Across, aslant, a scudding sea-mew  
Swam, dipped, and dropped, and grazed the sea:  
And one with me I could not dream you;  
And one with you I could not be.

— Algernon Swinburne, "By The North Sea"

_— Montreal, July 1999_


End file.
